LB 41 
.K5 
Copy 1 




c; 



/ 




REV. ME.. KIRK'S ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, 



August I, 1844. 



r 




THE GREATNESS OF THE HUMAN SOUL. 



AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY 



OF THE 



MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, 



SOUTH HADLEY, MASS. 



August 1, 1844. 




- / 
BY EDWARD N. KIRK, 

PASTOR OF THE MOUNT VERNON CHURCH, BOSTOK. 



Published by vote of the Trustees, 




BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 24 CONGRESS STREET. 

1844. 



ADDRESS. 



Certain phenomena of the mind are very mysterious, 
and seem to indicate a mysterious connection with worlds 
and beings unseen. Philosophy indeed has ventured to 
account for them, by asserting the existence of a previous 
state, of which the soul still retains vague, but delightful 
remembrances. This misty theory, however, has now 
given place to the clear announcements of revelation. 
The theory we reject. The facts we deem worthy of close 
observation. There are in man sentiments, faculties, and 
aspirings which reveal, as by glimpses, a hidden world 
superior to any thing that we know through the senses. 
These sentiments, functions and exercises of the soul are 
of very opposite kinds ; some, pure and lofty ; others, 
terrible perversions, illusions and wanderings, equally 
revealing the grandeur of its functions and of its destiny. 
I allude for example, to the prevalent discontent of the 
world, which, although sinful in itself, is an indication 
and perversion of that which is most ennobling. We pity 
and condemn, while we admire the soul's dissatisfaction, 
its insatiable longings that no possession of earth, no 
worldly success can gratify. The richest man feels him- 
self poor, and wants more ; the mightiest conqueror weeps 
to find the world circumscribing the field of his enterprise 
and triumphs. Michael Angelo dies with forms of beauty 
and grandeur in his mind, unchisselled and unpainted. 



He never stood and gazed at the Sistine chapel, (where 
his genius has left its proudest monument,) or at St. 
Peter's pile, (to the beauty of which he mainly contribu- 
ted,) and said, I am satisfied. He aspired, he hoped, at 
the end, as at the beginning of his artistic race. You 
have observed that on the thrones of the earth, in the 
courts of princes, in the superior places of power, on the 
crowned heights of fame and wealth, tlie heart is as really 
discontented, as in the lower walks of life. In fact the 
higher you raise man, and the more you enlarge his pos- 
sessions, the more he betrays this infinite thirst, this tow- 
ering ambition, this contempt of what is, and of what is 
possessed. I am not justifying it ; I am not unaware of 
the depravity it betrays ; it betrays depravity however 
only as a perversion of all that is grand in the spirit 
created after God's ima^e. 

And then there are childish fancies, which belong to no 
other creature than man in his infancy. Do you remem- 
ber the wish so often indulged, that you could fly? After 
lying upon the grass in the shade of a bright summer 
afternoon, and watching the graceful motion of the birds, 
and seeming to be yourself a swallow floating and skim- 
ming the verdant meadow, you have retired to rest, and 
still in dreams, burst the fetters of gravitation and swnng 
along over fields and houses and trees; ''skimmed the 
earth, soared above the clouds, bathed in the elysian dew 
of the rainbow, inhaled the balmy smells of nard and 
cassia, which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter 
through the cedared alleys of the Hasperides." The 
most rational of the quadrupeds never dream so. I may 
have attached too much to it ; while, on the other 
hand, it may be more than a cerebral excitement. It 
may be the struggling of a spirit born for freedom, 
weary of its present state of enslavement to sense and 
matter, and now rejoicing even to imagine itself free. 
The love of romance and of legends, the greedy devour- 



ings of the Arabian nights' entertainments are among the 
perversions \vhich have to ns the same mystical significa- 
tion. The lunatic in his ravings has exposed to our view 
some heights and depths of the human soul on which we 
had never looked before. We have heard him utter songs 
of praise and strains of eloquence that allied him to 
seraphs ; and in an instant the blasphemies of damned 
spirits, the deep thunder notes, the harshest gratings of 
hell's discord tore our distracted ear. How wonderful, we 
have exclaimed, is the human soul ! We have watched 
its healthful movements too, and reached the same result. 
The memory that gives to the child of yesterday the 
venerable antiquity of the globe it inhabits — the imagi- 
nation that makes the Christian of the nineteenth century 
the familiar companion of that old Chaldean patriarch who 
founded the Jewish nation, and of that Jewish Egyptian 
sage who founded its polity — the imagination that gives 
the inhabitant of a few square inches of earth a partial 
omnipresence, and annihilates time and space, and makes 
the past, present, future and distant all equally now and 
here ; that admirable creative faculty which makes and 
adorns fairer worlds than have ever met the dull eye ; — 
these, as well as Faith and Hope and Prayer are to us 
wonderful, all wonderful, when we have reached the 
meaning of them. They all, good and bad, alike indicate 
a spiritual nature with its own peculiar, illimitable desires, 
its exalted relations, its boundless sphere of action. 

You see it is the soul of which I mean to speak ; man's 
true and very self; of man in his superior nature, and of 
the more important departments of that nature. And to 
reach our object, I would lead you to survey the higher 
faculties of man — the causes of their being neglected — 
the consequences of that neglect, and the remedy. 

The higher faculties. 

In asserting that there is something in man conferring 



6 

on him an infinite value, I liave not adduced the clear 
testimony of revelation. There the peculiar origin of 
man's spirit is figuratively represented by the breathing of 
God himself into a material frame which he had construc- 
ted like the rest of the universe, of inert matter. There 
his immortality is declared, there his companionship with 
angelic beings, and his relations to God and the universe 
are represented as most sublime. There the value of the 
soul is set forth in the price of its redemption, as incalcula- 
ble by man himself. But we have omitted all this ; prefer- 
ring, on this occasion, to reach our position from the point 
of common observation, from actual phenomena, which 
none can even question. And we shall presume it to be 
admitted by all parties, that there is in man something 
of incalculable value ; that he is a being endowed with 
exalted faculties, and created for a glorious destiny. And 
with this admission in view, we ask you to observe the 
employments, the hopes, the condition, the conversation, 
the pleasures of the multitude, the majority of men. You 
must admit that you see little there in harmony with this 
theory of his dignity. And popular as the theory is, 
readily believed as it is in its general form, yet so far are 
men's daily thoughts from it, and so little influence does 
it exert on us, that it is as really necessary to bring up the 
evidence of our own superior endowments and responsibil- 
ities as though it were doubted or denied. 

The most precious of God's gifts to man, are his intel- 
lect and his moral faculties. Let us survey them separate- 
ly ; observing first the various forms of mere intellect and 
intellectual sensibility. This exalts man because it gives 
his weak frame power to subdue the strongest beasts of 
the earth, and bend the rugged forces and the tortuous 
works of nature to subserve his j^urposes. It is elevating, 
because it is one of the endowments which most ennobles 
man in the estimation of his fellow-man ; and because it 
gives fellowship with the noblest minds; and because it 



makes him capable of intelligent alliance to Tiath and to 
the whole mighty intellectual system. The intellect by 
itself however, is not comparable to the moral nature of 
man. It may be elevated indeed in the contemplation of 
sublimity, beauty and truth ; gigantic in its comprehen- 
sion of vastness, multitude and variety, and in its flights 
toward the infinite. Still, it is a subordinate endowment, 
and never so exalted as when it is subjected to the moral 
sentiments. I propose to survey the grandeur of each 
human soul by selecting from the common inheritance of 
mind some of the finest specimens. And this I do, sup- 
posing that each of us has something of the same rich 
endowment, though it may be in altogether less degree 
than is possessed by others. 

Intellect has been the predominant quality in great war- 
riors ; although generally separated from all the better 
sentiments. There it has appeared in stupendous forms. 
The battles, the campaigns of Hannibal, of Turenne, and 
Marlborough, Washington, Wellington and Napoleon, were, 
if you could consider them apart from the ambition, selfish- 
ness, and cruelty which actuated many of them, and the in- 
dividual suffering they caused, splendid displays of mental 
power. It was not by brute force, but by intellect they 
conquered. And while we admire that intellectual might 
of Napoleon, let us remember that there is in every mind 
here, at least the germ of that very energy and power of 
combination, that capacity for observation of men and facts, 
that memory and discernment and judgment which so emi- 
nently characterized him. The power of intellect has dis- 
tinguished all eminent painters, sculptors, architects and 
musical composers. Place before you those three men of 
genius, Angelo, Raphael and Rubens, and admire the 
magnificence of created intellect. The first was Painter, 
Sculptor, Architect, Poet and Engineer. His mind was a 
world peopled by ideas vast and sublime. The anatomy 
of his figures was astonishingly accurate. But while he 



8 

conformed thus rigidly to nature, his figures in their air, 
attitude and action surpassed nature. Tliey were men, 
but unearthly men. His prophets are corporeal expressions 
of the holiness and majesty of their oflice. There is a 
masculine energy in his conceptions that really overpowers 
you more than nature's realities. Raphael, on the con- 
trary, excelled in beauty, purity of form and perfection of 
design. He fully revived the severe beauty of the antique. 
Rubens moved in another world. To speak only of his 
excellencies, he was full of poetry and carried all nature 
in his memory. His works abound in richness of compo- 
sition, luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of coloring. But 
who can enumerate even the surviving monuments of in- 
tellectual power, taste and true sentiment ! We should 
here pass in review all the public and private galleries of 
painting and statuary in Europe, the surviving architecture 
of Europe and Asia ; as well the magnificent productions 
of the Grecian chisel, the Apollo, the Jupiter, the Venus, 
the Torso, the Gladiator and the Parthenon, as the less 
beautiful but more majestic productions of Egyptian genius, 
the Karnak, the Pyramids, the Sphinxes ; the wonders of 
Roman, Saxon, Saracenic art, and the endless richness 
and luxuriousness of the architectural genius of the mid- 
dle ages in Europe. Nor should the works of Handel, 
Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven be forgotten in our cata- 
logue. 

Then let us turn to the men of science, the philoso- 
phers, the sages, the legislators and statesmen who have 
carried forward the human race in its career of civilization. 
Plato has been called a blessed spirit who chooses for a 
time to take up his abode on earth, to communicate that 
which is necessary to it. There is in him a distinguishing 
purity of thought, a grandeur of soul, a noble aspiring, a 
freedom and vigor of imagination, in a word, a pure spirit- 
uality ; and then a power of embodying the most spiritual 
conceptions in the most exquisite forms, which force us to 



admire the created intellect of man. And what a gigantic 
force do we behold in Aristotle, who bound the human 
mind in chains for two thousand years, and is still fetter- 
ing one of the most important universities in England ! 
He seems to have labored among men with a conscious- 
ness of his commission to give an intellectual regeneration 
to the world. To his penetrating, industrious spirit, the 
treasures of matter, mind and philosophy lay open ; so 
that he could employ as it liked him, the nature or the 
reason of things to erect the great throne on which he sat 
so long undisputed sovereign of the intellectual world. 

Now turn with us to another class of intellectual facul- 
ties which exhibit the dignity of man — the poetic. 

The poetic faculty, whether receptive or creative, is an ev- 
idence that the human spirit is great. Through it in every 
age the soul of man has uttered its profoundest thoughts 
and feelings. When human society existed in its simpler 
states, and before philosophy and science had interrupted 
the dominion of fancy, leaving the imagination to people 
the air and rocks and rivers and seas with all conceivable 
shapes of beauty and terror, then poetry was found in its 
simplest forms, giving utterance to the wildness and tend- 
erness and strength of human feeling. Nothing has gone 
deeper into the soul of man than the rhythmical language 
of true poetry in that period ; and that, because nothing 
has come out from deeper places of the soul. We speak 
here not of the inspiration of prophecy nor of that of 
piety. They are unrivalled. Probably David the king 
and Watts the divine have given wings and spiritual vision 
and elective fire to more souls than all the uninspired and 
unsanctified men of their period or any other. Hear what 
a living French poet says of his own art. "Naive and 
simple," says LaMartine, " in the cradle of nations; fabu- 
lous and marvellous as a nurse by the child's crib ; amor- 
ous and pastoral among a young and rural people ; warlike 
and epic among the warrior and conquering hordes ; mystic, 
2 



10 

lyric, proplietic or sententious in the theocracies of Egypt 
and Judea; grave, philosophic and corrnpting in the ad- 
vanced civilizations of Rome, of Florence or of Louis 
XIV. ; dishevelled and howling in the epochs of convul- 
sions and ruins, as in '93; new, melancholy, uncertain, 
timid, audacious at the same time, in the days of social 
regeneration and reconstruction as ours ! Later in the old 
age of nations, sad, sombre, groaning and discouraged as 
they, and breathing at the same time in its strophes the 
mournful presentiments, the fantastic dreams of the world's 
last catastrophe, and the firm and divine hopes of a resur- 
rection of humanity under another form ; such is poetry." 

M. Vinet in his fine critique on this view of poetry, has 
said, " There was no poetry in Eden. Poetry is creation ; 
to be a j)oet, is to reconstruct the universe ; and what had 
the man of Eden to create, and why should he reconstruct 
the universe? When innocence retired weeping from our 
world, she met poetry on the threshold; they passed by 
each other, cast on each other one look of tender recogni- 
tion, and pursued their way, one towards heaven, the 
other towards the habitations of men." This solves the 
mystery of poetry. It is reconstruction, not of what we 
personally have seen, but of the beautiful world which 
our great progenitor knew, and for which we were created. 
Hence true poetry is at once truth and exaggeration. 
Hence its response in every heart, and its universal charm. 

Go back to that earliest singer in the land of Uz ; an 
Arab prince or sheik, perhaps of Abraham's stock. We 
call him Job, and think we know him. Plis soul was 
very deep, his eye Avas very clear, his vision very wide. 
He was indeed only a man, and therefore erred in his in- 
terpretation of God's ways. Still he went very deep into 
the great secret of the universe, very deep; and so was a 
true poet. 

How shall we speak of Milton and Shakspeare and 
Dante ! See the world of riches in the Paradise Lost ; its 



11 

landscapes, its theological philosophy, its portraits of angels 
and devils, its Paradise and Hell, its battles in mid heaven, 
the coming down of Messiah to decide the contest ! In a 
word, gaze upon that mighty monument of genius, the 
sixth book of Paradise Lost ! And remember that all this 
was the product of one mind ; remember that it was writ- 
ten in declining life, and after the saddest reverse of for- 
tune ! His voice is to us, now the sweetest flow of a 
limpid stream, now the <' sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs 
and harping symphonies." His mind was like the angels' 
gymnastic ground, where 

" O'er their heads. 
Celestial armory, shield, helm and spear, 
Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold." 

Dante has been called "the voice often silent centuries 
singing his mystic, unfathomable song." Look at him 
quitting the Inferno, and moving up into the Purgatorio, 
as he believed it ; false as fact — most true, most beautifid, 
as emblem. It is the mountain of Purification, an emblem 
of Repentance. The " tremolar dell 'onde," that trem- 
bling of the ocean-waves under the first pure gleam of 
morning, dawning afar off upon the wandering poet, is ex- 
quisite. " Hope has now dawned ; never dying hope, if 
in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure sojourn 
of demons and reprobate is under foot ; a soft breathing of 
penitence mounts higher and higher, to the throne of 
mercy itself." 

It is a valuable suggestion of Carlyle, that this whole 
Divina Comedia must be regarded as embodying the re- 
ligious heart and faith of the middle ages, and the dramas 
of Shakspeare as embodying the chivalry of past ages, the 
outer world ; viewed in this light, what creations they 
are ! 

We must now leave them, and illustrate intellectual 
greatness by one more class; the Orators ; men who em- 



12 

ploy those " native colors and graces of speech, as true 
eloquence, the daughter of virtue, can best bestow upon 
her mother's praises." We know nothing on earth to 
compare justly with the power of genuine oratory. Poetry 
is powerful. But it is to be read or sung, away from the 
poet. Aud its language is not the language of ordinary 
hfe. Hence it pleases more, hence its dignity and myste- 
rious magic ; and hence too, it sways the judgment less, 
and sinks not so deep into the soul as oratory. The speaker 
is there to utter his own words. It is a living man before 
you. He is full of truth. He is a believer, he feels, and 
he must make you feel. He is there to explain his mean- 
ing, to urge his conviction, to connnunicate his feeling by 
numberless signs. His attitude speaks, his eye, the mus- 
cles of the face, the body, the arui, the hand, yea the fin- 
gers speak. But above all, the voice ; this gives the fullest 
and mightiest utterance to the spirit of man. And under 
the full inspiration of a great theme and a great occasion, 
it is, as one has well described it, " the piercing of a sword, 
a winged thunderbolt, prostrating all opposition, inflaming 
all souls." It were superfluous here to refer you to the 
men who have displayed this power to a high degree. 

We have now dwelt so long upon the merely intellectual 
endowments of the human soul as to allow us only a brief 
space for the moral and religious sentiments. These are 
our link to the unseen, the spiritual world and to God its 
author, infinite in being and excellence. Here is the true 
dignity of man, that he is capable of knowing and loving 
God, and of being loved by him. Let man look within 
himself, and behold amid all other wonders, the greatest 
wonder of creative power. Let him think of his own 
conscience and heart, as ranking him among the first of 
creatures ; the conscience, that eye to catch the smile or 
frown of God, that ear to hear his approving or condemn- 
ing voice ; that heart to reciprocate his love ! Here arc 
spiritual and deathless powers, which, if they had never 



13 

been perverted, would have made him the object of God's 
unchanging love. These too are the facuhies by which 
God's Spirit communes with us and dwells within us, re- 
fining our spirits, and in this our state of apostacy, subdu- 
ing our selfishness and self will, restoring the lost image of 
our heavenly Father, and bringing our weak and fallen 
nature into full conformity to Christ's glorious person. 
And the superior degree of these powers has been possessed 
in a thousand instances to one of intellectual power. The 
solemn conflicts with passion and temptation, the victory 
over self, the adherance to duty amidst scorn and abandon- 
ment, the lofty hopes, the calm reliance on God, the weak- 
ness and patience under injuries, the fortitude and courage 
of pious men and women ; Oh, these are greater things 
than crowns and sceptres, greater than genius, greater than 
any and all things else on earth. What is greater in man 
than Hope, when it takes the faithfulness of God for its 
assurance, and with smiling visage and brilliant eye, lays 
a strong hand upon the everlasting promises ! How clear 
is the vision of that eye that looks undazzled and undi- 
verted upon the throne of God, claims no less than a pos- 
session amidst those celestial fields and glorious mansions, 
a companionship with the princes of heaven, and to be a 
brother to him who occupies the throne. Is there any 
thing out of heaven more truly excellent than the mild 
virtues of such women as Mary, the mother of our Lord, 
Lady Russell, and the Dairyman's Daughter ? I know 
nothing sweeter than the youth and the early piety of 
President Edwards. It was eminently a combination of 
the highest form of intellectual, spiritual, and domestic 
life. His first religious exercises are pure, meek, quiet, 
humble, and yet exalted to a degree truly angelical. You 
cannot read a few pages at the commencement of his diary, 
without feeling a heavenly atmosphere around your soul. 
And our idea of these mental powers thus sanctified will 
be enlarged by surveying their influence on society. It is 



14 

seen in the domestic circle, where woman sheds a pure 
and gentle Uyht on her own Httle em{)ire, malving home to 
every inmate the dearest |)lace on eartli. It is seen in the 
imniense influence wrought by the formers and reformers 
of society ; in the silent and gentle labors of the pious 
teacher, or in the mighty etforis of Luther and many mod- 
ern missionaries, of the men who wrote what has been 
well styled the martyr-literature of England, " character- 
ized by a depth and seriousness of feeling, a direct and 
powerftd flashing upon the soul, superior to any remains of 
Greek literature." Here are the most admirable combina- 
tions of the highest faculties. 

By this superficial glance at the mind, as its powers have 
been developed by many individuals in difl^erent ages of 
the world, we may form some estimate of the worth of the 
human intellect and heart, of your mental powers and of 
mine as individuals. 

We are now led to inquire into the causes of that gene- 
ral neglect and undervaluing of the true riches and orna- 
ments which every one possesses. That there is such 
neglect and undervaluing, can scarcely need to be proved. 
The evidence of it lies upon the very surface of society. 
It is seen in the frivolous amusements to which those of 
every class resort, not so much for the legitimate purpose 
of relaxing minds that have been bent to their utmost, as 
to prevent the mind from preying on itself. It is seen in 
the style and topics of conversation ; in the class of books 
and papers now most in demand ; in the solicitude of pa- 
rents to have the course of education soon finished, and 
their children out making their fortunes, and enjoying the 
world ; in the habit of most young persons to abandon 
the severe employment of the intellectual powers, imme- 
diately on quitting the school, and finally, in the type of 
piety most prevalent among the serious, which may be 
characterized as desiring to make sure of happiness here- 
after, rather than striving after the highest attainments in 



15 

holiness, and the most intimate communion with God now. 
Here is the betrayal of an undervaluing of those distin- 
guishing powers which God has conferred npon us, and 
which may be trained to an indefinite extent ; and of a 
disregard to those spiritual enjoyments of which man, 
every man is ca[)able. 

The root and origin of it all is, unquestionably, our 
alienation from God. Having forsaken him as our portion, 
his favor as our happiness, and his law as our standard, we 
have fallen into many false notions and evil habits, which 
go to confirm that alienation, by making us insensible to 
the immensity of our loss. By departing from God, we 
have sunk from the infinite to the finite, from the eternal 
to the transient, from the elevated and pure and true, to 
the low and vile and false. Tinsel and glare and baubles 
liave come to content us wliom God made to be satisfied 
with himself alone. Had man abode with God in the pos- 
ture of a child, a pupil, a servant, a subject, then had God 
kept in exercise all those powers which make man most 
resemble God. Then had he taught us to despise all that 
is trivial and superficial and low. As it is now, man has 
fortified himself in this degraded state, that he may not be 
discontented with it, nor made to rise higher. See how 
strong his shield and fortresses are. There is indolence^ 
which dreads the struggle to arouse the soul and keep it 
awake and active in the pursuit of great objects ; pride, 
which refuses to be judged by a standard that exposes our 
defects ; ignorance which keeps us unaccpiainted with the- 
powers we are thus neglecting to cultiv^ate and exercise. 
And then we are creatures of fashion ; that is, we estimate 
as valuable and important what the world estimates so ; 
we have come even to despise that enthusiasm which is 
the soul of greatness, as it gives the soul an infinitely more 
worthy object of pursuit than self. And even very many 
converted men have regarded piety as something else than 
actual, ardent, active love to God and men. 



16 

Let us then for a moment turn to the consequences of 
this neglect. They may be summed up in these — mental 
slavery, poverty, waste, misery, hurtfulness and irreparable 
loss. There is no slavery so pitiable as that of the mind; 
and no abolitionists should be so earnest as those who 
would break these chains. There is the slavery of fash- 
ionable life, which may be described as the pursuit of 
excitement that costs the intellect nothing, and as obedi- 
ence to a code of laws issued by an unseen, unknown, 
and utter tyrant. Some are born into this circle, and the 
more to be pitied ; some are attracted to it by its arrogant 
pretensions to superiority, refinement and knowledge of 
the world. With all these, it is a system of slavery where 
no one can choose the right, and govern himself by sound 
reason and an enlightened conscience, where none dares to 
be serious or earnest, except about trifles. There is the 
slavery of political life and of party, whether in church, 
state, reform, or any where else. There is a humiliating 
want of the manly exercise of a true independence. The 
majority of our people have but exchanged masters. With 
all their Fourth of July noise and flags and speeches and 
toasts, there is an exceeding want both of ability, and de- 
sire and courage to be free. To be able to be independent, 
and to desire and dare to be independent, requires a true 
knowledge of our individual worth and responsibility, a 
true conquest of ourselves, and a full submission to God. 
With all our boast of freedom and intelligence, there is a 
vast deal of puppetism among us ; men pulled by wires 
that others hold. And it is a worse feature of society even 
than this, that when we undertake to be free, we bungle 
and stumble and make such sad work, that in very shame 
and disappointment, like the French people, we swing 
from Louis XVL to Napoleon I. There is in the world 
much unquietness and dissatisfaction with slavery. That 
is well, so far as it goes, as a commencement, the very 
faintest commencement of a healthful pulsation. We do 



17 

not yet know how to be free ; for freedom requires a true 
estimate of ourselves, a love of submission to all right- 
ful authority, and a desire to use our powers for their le- 
gitimate purposes. This ignorance and under-estimate of 
ourselves moreover makes us poor. And nothing shows 
mental poverty more clearly than the ordinary commerce 
of conversation. Rich nations and rich merchants traffic 
in costly, substantial, elegant, valuable merchandize. And 
so do rich minds. But what a petty traffic do the chief 
part of mankind keep up with one another. Suppose 
the conversation of one day to be written down and 
printed, and submitted to the inspection of angels, nay, 
of men themselves ; what could they think of but 
Vanity-fair? Tinselled ware, glass diamonds, -poisonous 
stimulants, worn-out articles, thread-bare garments for 
the spirit, yea, even the garbage of slander ; such is 
the stock in trade of that vast busy throng in the city, 
the village, the highway. Here and there is one who 
knows the worth of speech, and enriches himself and 
others by all his intercourse. There are only a few who 
talk to any good purpose. There are few whose conver- 
sation does not betray a total suspension of all their sub- 
limer faculties ; who are not mere automatons to keep in 
motion the common places of the day. Another conse- 
quence of this neglect is that waste of mind which was 
so well described here two years ago.* Men would not 
waste their time nor their mental power, if they knew the 
worth of both these treasures. But when they have made 
outward and material things to constitute the chief good 
which their souls pursue and cherish, to these outward 
things they must give themselves, because the heart 
will be where the treasure is ; and then we have the 
rushing and scrambling for perishable riches and human 
honors and ephemeral pleasures. The shrewd, calculating 
faculty, the lower intellectual power, the selfish, the ani- 



In an Address by Prof. Hitchcock. 

3 



mal, are brought vigorously into exercise ; while all that 
is truly elevated slumbers and dwindles, and finally per- 
ishes of inanition. Here is thus, in the course of each 
human life so spent, an incalculable, an irreparable loss. 
No numbers can express it. What the man might have 
been and done, and what he is and has done, are at an 
immeasurable distance from each other. He, the commu- 
nity, the universe have sufiered more than if thousands of 
merely material worlds were annihilated. And there has 
been too through the whole course, an amount of hurtful- 
ness which we should not overlook. He has helped to 
make others estimate themselves and worldly good and 
true excellence just as falsely as he has done. And withal, 
this ignorance and neglect is a source of much of the 
misery of man. Is the mountain-eagle happy in a cage ? 
He may eat and sleep there ; but his wings, where are 
they, and of what use ; and where that strong eye made 
to gaze upon the sun ? Alas, it grows dim in the darkness 
of its prison. It has been a long experiment this — to be 
happy without employing the whole mind, and without 
exercising the heart in its purest and best sensibilities. It 
has forever failed. If man was made for knowledge, for 
truth, to scale its steep mountains and dig into its deep 
mines, if he was made for God and his love, if for benevo- 
lence, active, self-denying, laborious, constant, then you 
cannot make hiin happy in substituting for this, the gath- 
ering of dollars, the keeping, nor the expending them on 
himself; then amusements, then ease and indolence, then 
the world in any form, and selfishness at its best estate 
cannot save him from misery. And it is painful to see 
how many people are being educated to be miserable. 
How hard men toil, how patient and persevering they are, 
only to get a more honorable or fashionable or luxurious 
kind of misery ! 

And is there no remedy ? We believe there is, and 
therefore we speak. 



19 

That is, there are certain points toward vvliich we may 
direct our course, with the reasonable hope of reaching a 
higher position than we have yet attained. Tlie first is 
that endlessly improvable matter : 

Education. Every body feels that they have a right 
to complain of it, and we must have our share, for our 
hint may be useful somewhere. We say ; the faculties 
ought all to be trained. These superior capacities of 
which w^e have spoken, are mostly either entirely neglect- 
ed or very superficially regarded in our systems of instruc- 
tion and mental discipline. We remark for instance, this 
radical defect, that whatever may be the subject of study, 
the motives actuating the pupil are not generally attended 
to with sufficient care. The motive or the reason for 
doing any thing is that which constitutes the whole of 
character. And when the heart of a pupil is actuated 
only by the lower class of motives, every page he studies, 
every step he advances under the influence of those mo- 
tives, increases at once his intellectual strength and his 
moral depravity. Imagine all the motives which may 
actuate the human mind to be arranged in the order of 
their excellence, making a scale somewhat in this wise. 
Lowest of all is selfishness, or the desire to secure self- 
gratification at the expense or neglect of others' happiness. 
This is the essence of sin. Then there is a class that in 
themselves have no moral character, only as they are con- 
trolled by the benevolent or selfish principle. They are, 
the desire of self-approbation — the love of approbation — 
the love of knowledge — the love of achievement or suc- 
cess — the love of power. Then come the holy motives 
of — the desire to glorify God — the desire to please him — 
the desire to make others happy and holy. It seems to 
me that every parent and teacher ought to have an entire 
familiarity \\n\X\ that scale of motives, a keen discernment 
of the states of the mind in the exercise of each of them 
respectively, an incessant and vigilant attention to motives 



20 

as they come into operation at every step and stage of 
study. Tiiis lies at the root of education for usefuhiess, 
for true greatness and for happiness ; for every time you 
indulge a motive, you strengthen it. And again, we mean 
by educating all the faculties, something very different 
from going through a certain set of studies chiefly in refer- 
ence to the acquisition of facts or principles instead of the 
thorough and harmonious cultivation of the individual 
faculties and susceptibilities. The course of study ought 
to be selected mainly in reference to that. The human 
mind may be compared to a watch out of order, and edu- 
cation to the process of repairing. No two watches are to 
receive the same treatment. The particular difficulty, de- 
fect, derangement, excess or deficiency of each one is to 
be discovered, and the process of reparation directed there. 
Now much of our educating is like a watchmaker taking 
a hundred watches and setting them in a row, and first 
applying a file to them all, and then a hammer and then a 
blow-pipe and then a screw-driver, because files and ham- 
mers and blow-pipes and screw-drivers are all to come in 
somewhere in horology. In fact the nobler powers, the 
better feelings and faculties need to be aroused, while the 
animal and the ignoble must be constantly checked in the 
large majority of the youthful minds. In fact, one of the 
most striking features of Edwards's experience is, that with 
all his elevation of spirit, he found a constant effort neces- 
sary to keep his better powers in action. Let a few speci- 
mens suffice. We suppose that every child could be made 
to feel more or less sympathy with nature or the works of 
God, There are germs of poetry in every human heart, 
and every human soul can be made to love flowers and 
stars and fields and woods, because they are all unmingled 
beauty and untainted by sin, and friendly to self-knowledge, 
to benevolence and purity and communion with God. 
Let the cultivation of that feeling command the best ef- 
forts of the first talents, while the germs of poetry and 



21 

eloquence are thus cherished, and the habit of self-com- 
munion is formed. The sublime and the beautiful in 
matter and mind can be held before the youthful eye 
under the discriminating remarks and the animated feel- 
ings of the teacher until the love of beauty, the quick 
appreciation of the true, the simple, the grand in nature, 
in man and in God, together with the deep abhorrence of 
deformity, defilement and meanness become fundamental 
elements of the character. We would dwell upon the 
formation in the youthful mind of a love of history and of 
a discriminating judgment of character and events — a cor- 
rect taste and judgment concerning literature, so necessary 
now, — the formation of a due estimate of the value of 
their own powers, and the importance of cultivating them — 
the pure love of knowledge and of mental effort — the ad- 
miration of God's attributes, and (we speak simply of 
what every teacher should incessantly aim to accomplish 
under the divine blessing) an ardent, childlike love of his 
character — the admiration of the soul as it was manifested 
in Christ's human nature, and as it will become in every 
regenerated spirit — the deep sympathy of the heart for 
man in his present position and prospects — the full com- 
prehension of what we may do for his everlasting well- 
being. 

In addition to this positive course, we suggest the check- 
ing false tendencies ; the correction of prejudices and 
error which are early formed, and which exceedingly in- 
jure the mind and heart ; the checking and chastening of 
the exuberant imagination which early gives a wrong di- 
rection to the whole character. 

We would suggest another general view on the subject 
of Education ; that it should aim to prepare the pupil for 
real life ; to meet and mingle not with fairies and angels 
and blue beards, but just such erring, feeble, prejudiced, 
fickle, selfish, suftering people as fill the world and make 
up society. Children are deceived by their imaginations, 



and, remain undeceived and untaught by their teachers, as 
to the kind of the world they hve in, the kind of people 
they are to mingle with, yes, and the kind of beings they 
themselves are. The single habit of questioning in every 
case of difficulty with another, whether I am not wrong, 
is worth more than a pile of classic authors stowed in the 
mind of a self -conceited, irritable scholar. True, much 
must be learned by experience ; yet the teacher should 
keep the real world in view in the whole course of train- 
ing. To know how to treat every human being with 
whom we have intercourse is not put down on college 
catalogues ; but if I had a son, I should prefer to send him 
a fifth year to a competent professor of that important and 
attainable art. How much of human happiness depends 
on conversation ! And conv^ersation is as truly an art as 
writing or medical practice. Now we ask ; where is it 
taught ? Education too should prepare the mind for the 
world as a scene of temptation and probation. Education 
should educate both sexes, but chiefly woman for home. 
That is her empire. She is mainly responsible for its 
prosperity, its peace, its moral riches, its order, its splendor. 
Music has its place, its important place there, and is indis- 
pensable to the highest governance of the domestic em- 
pire. Let it be remembered however, that the tongue is 
employed more hours than the piano ; and if she can 
learn to play well on only one, let it be the former. Our 
.views of education would embrace an anticipation that 
the pupils are to be loyal subjects of Christ's kingdom, 
members of his visible church and heirs of his glory, and 
aim to qualify them for the highest stations in all these, of 
which they may be capable. This impression must be 
deepest in the teacher's heart. If it be not, he will fail 
to educate aright. 

Our second remedy is in Home Education. At home 
the great work of forming the character is chiefly to be 
done. And the world will continue to go wrong and be 



23 

wrong, until the duties of the parental office are better 
understood and more faithfully discharged. There the 
finer social feelings, the delicate sense of propriety, the 
respect for age, the submission to authority, the study of 
mutual happiness, the attention to the lesser wants of 
others, the constant anticipation of their changing necessi- 
ties and feelings, the habit of fulfilling the duties of the 
most important relations of life are all to be cherished. 

Our last proposed remedy is the promoting religious 
faith. There was never greatness of any kind without 
some kind of faith. Skepticism is spiritual death. Its 
brilliant intellect is the rotten-wood glow that scares and 
amuses children. Heartlessness is not the glory of man. 
To know so much as to believe nothing is not greatness, 
but meanness. All poetry, all science, all philosophy, all 
loveliness, require faith. And religious faith is the highest 
form. It beholds and loves and trusts and fears God, a 
Being of infinite greatness. The problems which it solves 
are connected with his plans and purposes ; the hope 
which it indulges is the inspiration of his truth. The 
glories to which it aspires are both pure and eternal, and 
so are its treasures, its friendships and its dwelling-place. 
Its study is chiefly the mystery of Redemption. These 
are the occupations of the intellect and the heart. Its 
love is chiefly exercised on the infinite excellence of God, 
Its hatred is concentrated on the odiousness of sin. Man 
in the unestimated value of his soul, in his exposure to an 
eternal evil and his capacity for an endless happiness, is 
the object of its sympathy. Prayer is its highest employ- 
ment. Reasoning with God, persuading God, and work- 
ing in harmony with God, such is religious faith. Its 
struggles arc with a depraved heart ; its aspirings are after 
perfect holiness. The animosity of the believer is mainly 
directed against the defects in his own character. For 
other men he has charity, compassion, forbearance, sympa- 
thy. Such is the true believer. There are no trifles in 



24 

his life. "When he unbends, it is the bird of heaven gath- 
ering strength for another and loftier flight. I do not say- 
how many such behevers are now in the world. I say- 
there are such ; there must be more, more by hundreds of 
milhons, and when they come, there will be more real 
greatness, more varied loveUness, more mental power, 
more pure happiness, than the world has ever seen. World- 
liness in all its forms is skepticism, and skepticism is 
hollow, weak, poor. Faith in the great realities of the 
revelation of God makes a man, a nation truly great and 
truly lovely. I admit that there have never been many 
periods of the revival of religious faith when its true influ- 
ence was exhibited on a broad scale. Such a day however 
was seen throughout Central Europe, when Martin Luther 
began to be a true believer. His faith struck a light to 
guide millions up from the damp, dark caverns of supersti- 
tion into a lovely day of liberty and holy fellowship with 
Christ, Such a day was seen when a baptism of the 
Spirit came upon England, and its intellect put on the 
loveliest and the loftiest forms it has ever assumed. It 
has been well said that " no one can have shrines erected 
to his memory in the hearts of the men of distant genera- 
tions, unless his own heart was an altar on which daily 
sacrifices of fervent devotion and magnanimous self-denial 
"were ofl'ered to the only true object of human worship." 

This has been too much overlooked, that an essential 
element of greatness is self-restraint, self-renunciation ; 
and that nothing secures self-renunciation but faith. 
How can skepticism carry one out of himself, when its 
very nature is the exaggeration of self? Man must be- 
lieve in something, must love something, must pursue 
some chief interest. And when that something is self, 
and that interest is self-interest, there is skepticism. 
Faith is its antagonist. It is the generous believing, con- 
fiding in God as infinitely more real and excellent than 
self, in God's glory as infinitely more worthy of pursuit 



25 

than anything connected with self. Faith in the incar- 
nation of the Son of God, in his substitution for man be- 
fore the law, in his vicarious humiliation and suffering and 
sacrifice, is the strongest power to lift man to the dignity 
and purity and loveliness of self-renunciation. The cardi- 
nal doctrine of the world in its selfishness and skepticism, 
is this — suflering, obscurity, contempt of men are the 
great evils of life. Hence as the paths of duty and glory 
lie generally with us, as with Jesus, through shame and 
sorrow, these are forsaken paths. Hence, as the greatest 
stimulant to the human intellect is not found in the petty 
objects connected with self, a large portion of every one's 
power lies undeveloped and paralyzed under the deadening 
influence of selfishness and skepticism. Hence, as selfish- 
ness is out of harmony with truth, the soul must be kept 
in the fetters of prejudice and falsehood and half-truths 
and contradictions and absurdities. Ah ! here is the waste 
of mind. It may occur to some that men without faith 
have displayed the most entire self-renunciation in com- 
mercial and military and scientific pursuits. We admit it, 
and call your attention to two considerations. In the ma- 
jority of cases, they would have acknowledged their zeal 
to terminate on self, so that there was no self-renunciation. 
And their very zeal for science and victory and wealth 
was an imitation of faith which renounces a present sen- 
sible interest for one unseen and distant. And if any one 
should suppose that this form of selfishness and of skepti- 
cism as to nobler ends has developed as much mental 
power as faith, let it be suggested that selfishness may 
arouse the active powers, and sustain their active exercise. 
Mere activity however is not sufficient for the accomplish- 
ment of the most important ends of life. Let us refer 
to two eminent military men for confirmation. John 
Churchill the Duke of Marlborough, under Q.ueen Anne, 
who preserved the Protestant powers of Europe from the 
grasp of Louis XIY. and the Jesuits, was a man of faith 
4 



26 

and prayer. His military talents were of the first order. 
His name was a terror to the French armies. But there 
were junctures in that terrible period when mere military 
talent would have proved utterly insufficient. The Dutch 
government was jealous, selfish and narrow ; the English 
fiiction created by French gold was very powerful. And 
had Marlborough's military zeal originated in selfishness, 
or even loyalty, it could not have endured the fiery trials 
to which his spirit was exposed. His presence and unre- 
mitted labors had become indispensable to the preservation 
of European liberty and the Protestant cause. Just at 
that period his enemies succeeded in destroying his reputa- 
tion at home, and in diminishing his military resources on 
the continent. Nothing but his pure faith in God saved 
him then from either turning traitor or abandoning his post. 
But he labored still, just as if England appreciated and 
Holland sustained him. He was one of the master spirits 
of the Christian era ; and his character derived its strength 
and beauty from his faith in God. The same seems to us 
true of Washington, whose position and trials and conduct 
were remarkably similar to Marlborough's. 

We have placed this point last, because we would 
have it left last upon the memory. The human powers 
are wasted by unbelief. Human labor is lost by toiling 
for perishing good. The richest endowments, the most 
glorious capacities are withered and wasted under the. 
chilling frosts of unbelief. Human society is full of 
heartlessness and frivolity, because men do not believe 
God's testimony, and so know not what to live for, rob- 
bing the afi'ections of their legitimate objects, and cramp- 
ing the soul to a sphere too narrow for its ethereal powers. 

Look then from the elevated position of man's immortal 
endowments to the world at large, and to the condition of 
individual minds. Why is there not everywhere a rush 
to the rescue of mind from its degradation ! Alas, a rush 
will not save it. Patient, steady, humble, earnest work 



27 

and prayer are alone availing. Count the millions of the 
human race who know nothing of the powers that slum- 
ber within them. They walk hke the inhabitants of a 
gold region, careless and poor over a soil full of the most 
precious materials. And will no one go to arouse them 
to a sense and consciousness of their own dignity and im- 
mortal value ? Yes, some are going, more are going ; and 
we must continue steadily with growing zeal to aid them. 
And at home we must prize more the individual soul, and 
labor to bring it forth to the exercise of all those wonder- 
ful powers which God has conferred upon it. We have 
come together to-day to study anew the science of mental 
mineralogy, to contemplate anew the hidden treasures of 
the mind. And since we find that the roughest specimen 
may contain the most precious qualities ; that no work is 
so important as the working out and polishing that precious 
material ; and that nothing can be more for the glory of 
God, the good of our country and individual happiness, 
let us give ourselves to this great work, by God's help. 
We see that general education may be improved, that 
domestic education is an indispensable instrument of ele- 
vating mankind, and that the promotion of a living faith 
is necessary for securing to God that revenue of glory 
which is his due, and to man that blessedness for which 
he was created. Our task is then before us; in God's 
strength let us do it. And as we see that the institution 
whose anniversary has convened us, is accomplishing all 
these objects with growing success ; let us praise God, 
take courage, and cherish the Mount Holyoke Seminary. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 720 664 9 



